Welcome to the Misadventures of Widowhood blog!

In January of 2012 my soul mate of 42 years passed away after nearly 12 years of living with severe disabilities due to a stroke. I survived the first year after Don’s death doing what most widows do---trying to make sense of my world turned upside down. The pain and heartache of loss, my dark humor, my sweetest memories and, yes, even my pity parties are well documented in this blog.

Now that I’m a "seasoned widow" the focus of my writing has changed. I’m still a widow looking through that lens but I’m also a woman searching for contentment, friends and a voice in my restless world. Some people say I have a quirky sense of humor that shows up from time to time in this blog. Others say I make some keen observations about life and growing older. I say I just write about whatever passes through my days---the good, bad and the ugly. Comments welcome and encouraged. Let's get a dialogue going! Jean

Sunday, June 29, 2014

After spending two and a half days reading profiles at on-line
dating sites for old people I decided I don’t want a man in my life which I suspected all along. At my age
who needs the stress of being judged and maybe rejected like a cow at a county
fair whose owner was hoping for a blue ribbon. It’s hard enough to make new women
friends at the senior hall and the woman/man thing is so much more complicated.
With most of the profile guys on dating sites they want traveling
companions (which I’m not interested in doing) and too many are just looking for
opportunities to prove that “their plumbing works." Oh, my! That’s old man code for what young guys would come right out and
say: "Only hot babes looking for hot sex need apply!" Hot babes are few and far
between in the geriatric set and profile guys don't seem to know about the hot babes over
at Advanced Style where the blog
owner has a catch-and-release sort of program. He photographs all the hot older
ladies he meets and he doesn't find those women all over the place. He searches
and searches the streets every day.

If I were to write and post a profile for on-line dating I’d
say, "I’m not interested in seeing your underwear or your birthday suit" and not a
damn guy would send me a ‘flirt’---that’s the lingo they use for making your
first contact with someone you’re interested in conversing with. See how smart
I’ve gotten in such a short time of studying on-line dating? If I were to write
an honest profile---and there shouldn’t be any other kind---I’d have to confess
to not liking motorcycles or cooking my skin at the beach, cooking food in the
kitchen or doing all the laundry while the Sports-All-Day-Long Network
plays in the background. I’d have to confess that I’m not interested in having
a guy relocate his life into my house or me relocating my life into his dwelling
place. In other words, I’m not marriage material. If profile guys are being
honest, marriage is a high priority…except with the pen-pal seeking prisoner I wrote about in previous posts. My
husband and I worked too hard to get the security and creature comforts I enjoy now just to hand them over to a
profile guy after a month or two of conversing like my friend in Florida has been known to do with the guys she meets on-line. Even if a profile guy turned out to be a nice dude,
and not a con-artist, x-con or axe murderer, merging bank accounts and household bills
is not going to happen so why lead on a marriage-minded guy when all I want is to talk to someone, once in a great while, who doesn't wear a bra?

And let me add as a Weight Watcher drop out, I’m turned off
by the hypocrisy of guys who are carrying spare tires around their waistlines
and look like they’ve got walnuts stuffed in their cheeks who specify how much
their dream woman should weigh. What are they going to do, take a bathroom
scales to their first in-person date and make sure his internet match didn’t
indulge in one too many fudge flavored ice cream bars? Check your mirrors, profile guys with
skinny-chick fetishes, many of you couldn't pass your own the body mass Litmus Test.

In all seriousness, though, lately I’ve been thinking a lot about romance and love and
what it takes to fall in love over seventy as opposed to when I was young. It’s
more complicated as we age, isn’t it. There are children, grandchildren, x-spouses,
dead spouses, cats and dogs involved not to mention deeply entrenched opinions
and likes and dislikes. When we're young and in love we tend to grow in the
same direction like morning glory vines greeting the sun. If you were happy together
for many years like Don and I were you get to the point where you can’t tell
where each other stops and starts. Something tells me that can’t happen with seniors who may fall into companionship-works-for-me
but that’s not love according to the Gospel of Jean.

Since I started researching on-line dating every
song I hear on the radio reminds me of something about my husband---a come-recuse-me
look from across a room or that twinkle in Don’s eyes when he was
intrigued by something I said, or those smoldering looks that spoke volumes. Earlier
this week at a museum party I attended an old guy looked at me like he was
intrigued by something I said and all I could think about was, I wonder if he has all his own teeth. In
my mind I just can’t pair the Gerital set and romance up in the same sentence.
Yet I know it happens. After my dad gave up his driver’s license I chauffeured
him and his girlfriend around on weekly dates. Sometimes he looked at her like
she was the Fountain of Youth and he’d just walked through the Sahara Desert. Daughters
don’t like to think of their fathers as needing to get a room, but looking
back---Geez, I have to go watch a video of someone beating a puppy to clear
that visual of my dad out of my head!

Friday, June 27, 2014

Tuesday night I dropped the dog off at the kennel so he
wouldn’t have to be alone on Wednesday while I was on a long day trip arranged
by the senior hall. Two buses of us (100 people) made five stops not all that
far from home but to places I’d never been before. At one stop, half our group
toured a restored 1920/30s art deco theater, a labor of love by people in a
small town, after it sat empty for a number of years. It was interesting being
back stage to see how the curtains, props and screens were raised and lowered.
I hadn’t been back stage since my high school days and it brought back a horrible
memory of the cruelest prank anyone has ever played on me. I was an understudy
for a speaking part in the play that I didn’t memorize and the night of
the opening my best friend, who was in the play, called to tell me I had to go
on that night because our other friend---the one I understudied---has lost her
voice. I, of course, forgave my friend for lying because I was so relieved I didn't have to embarrass myself on stage but, Nancy, I know you will
read this so be forewarned that a pay-back prank is still on the way.

Then the people on my bus toured an Italianate style home---a mansion, really---that hadn’t been remodeled or redecorated since 1880 when it was built while
the other half of our group headed for the art deco theater. The guy who commissioned the
house to be built started out his work life at age 14 as an orphaned farm hand and
he went on to become a prosecuting attorney who also owned 1,000 acres on Bois
Blanc Island and a steamboat to take his family back and forth to their summer
home there. I guess it paid well to put people in jail in Ionia County.

Next we took a steamboat, luncheon cruise near our state
capital. The food and jazz band were great and it was the first time I’d been on a steamboat. I
especially enjoyed the storytelling skills of the captain/owner of the vessel.
He remained me of my husband because you could tell the captain enjoyed
repeating his well-honed stories and getting laughs over how his family came to
own so many steamboats---4 or 5, I lost count but the one we were on holds 400
people. Going up and down the river was nothing special---no view of the State capital
building or fancy estates that I’d hoped for---but as I sat in a deck chair on
the top level enjoying the summer sun another woman and I discovered that she
and her husband and Don and I had made the exact same trips out west to
Colorado and Wyoming during the same months and years, to the same little towns as one
another. It’s a small world after all, as they say at Disneyland.

After lunch we toured a “castle” that was built in 1922 as a
replica of a Norman Chateau. No one ever lived in the place, it was built as a
writing studio for a man who was then the largest selling author in the entire
world, James Oliver Curwood. Lo and behold I found one of his books in my
library when I got back home. He wrote over 30 books and at least 18 movies
were based on his action-adventure novels including one that starred John Wayne.
The poor fellow died at age 49 from a spider bite. And I never, ever want to go in another
castle. I am not a mountain goat, used to climbing steep
stairways in turrets, and the views of the Shiawassee River from the top were less than spectacular. I love saying that word, Shiawassee which means, “River that twists
about.”

Our next stop was to a historical village that I found somewhat
boring except for the fact that many of my traveling companions knew so little
about 1800s gadgets and household items. While I was saying, “Oh,
I have one of those!” others were asking, “What was that used for?” I was
rather shocked at that and about half way through the ten buildings I quit saying, “I
have one of those” for fear they’d think I live in a hoarder’s house. Which I
don’t, in case you're wondering. I guess hanging around antique shops since I was 18 years old is something I took for granted. I thought the whole world, for example, recognizes a salt dish when they see one.

Tuesday, June 24, 2014

First, again with the disclaimer: I'm not looking for romance. But Judy from the Upward
and Onward blog and I have a new hobby worth writing about a second time---checking out profiles at a dating site for seniors. I know what you’re thinking. We both
live in Michigan, both viewing the same pool of guys and sooner or later we’re
going to have a cat fight over a guy who intrigues us both enough to actually
sign up and send that poor unsuspecting fellow a ‘flirt.’ That's not going to happen and I'll tell you why. She’s a feline person, I’m a dog person. She smokes, I don’t. She’s a
church goer, I’m allergic to churches. These areas of incompatibility are deal
breakers on my side of the state. Therefore, guys who smoke and love going on church mission trips and/or
have cats won’t get a second look from me which means Judy’s pool of candidates
is much larger than mine. Although when I told her about the guy with the 15 cats,
she didn’t seem all that interested. I wonder why. But I found out that even
dog loving guys can be prejudice against me bringing sweet Levi the
schnauzer into a relationship. Profile guy Exhibit A has two dogs of his own
and thinks traveling with anymore pets than that would be too much trouble. So,
he has a ‘no pets’ clause in his profile. The jerk.

I strongly suspect I’m also not compatible with a guy who is
looking for a woman into AFHV. I don’t even know what that means and I’m afraid to do a Google search for fear I’ll land on an X-rated site that will send me
pop-up ads for the next two years. Decoding the dating profiles is getting easier though. “Very loving” equals “I’m horny.” “Love long walks on the
beach” means “I will do romantic things until I get you in the sack.” “Seeking
a woman who likes to hug, kiss and hold hands as much as I do” equates to “I’m very
horny. Did I mention horny?” Some guys have sweet ways of saying they are
horny, like: “Falling in love is like riding a bike. You never forget how. I
have a bicycle built for two with a vacant seat.” Ladies, can we all do a collective
sigh right now? That's a great line, internet profile guy. Much better than
a guy who, in his profile photo, is holding a sign that reads, “Wish
this was still America!” No decoding necessary here. He is saying: “I’m
a Tea Party guy who hates Obama. Stay away, liberal ladies!” He doesn’t have to
ask me twice. I back-buttoned off his profile at warp speed. Maybe I should have bookmarked him for Judy? NASCAR guys and
those looking for spontaneity can count me out, too. My neck gets too tired when
it has to spin around and around, following the action on the track and being spontaneous
left my DNA during those seventeen years I was a caregiver to my dad, then to my husband.
Now, I reside in the land of lists and schedules and I’m happy with that. And speaking of decoding, I’m
beginning to wonder if “willing to move” isn’t code for “I live in a run-down shack and
would like to upgrade to your place.” Aren’t I the skeptical one!

Profile guys can be just as picky as we women, though. One
guy doesn’t want a ‘flirt’ from any woman who doesn’t post a photo. Oops! I think did
that once quite by accident. Another guy---Mr. Kind he calls himself---doesn’t
want a woman over 150 pounds. A guy with one leg, who claims he's never had
a serious relationship in his entire life, doesn’t want a woman who will try to
change him. Okay. Back button to you, too, Mr. Happy-To-Me who probably loses women because he won't give up midnight runs to the liquor store even though he's already too drunk to find his prosthetic leg in his hoarder's house. I am not making this up. This guy exists and I doubt he could be trained to put the toilet seat back down, another deal breaker for me. Correction/confession: I did make up the part about the hoarder's house. He was a "rolling stone" so probably he doesn't own much of anything, what with his traveling all over the world with the job that he lost with the leg. My widow friend who is into fixer-uppers would love this guy.

Finding a travel partner is a big requirement for a lot of profile guys
as is finding a women who like motorcycles and boats. (I don’t even like to get
into cars with women in my age bracket unless I know they’ve had their eyes
checked recently and I can see that their cars don't look like they've been used to play bumper
cars at an amusement park. Getting on a motorcycle with an old guy when I don’t
have access to his DMV records isn’t going to happen.) One sweet guy was
looking for a woman to take fishing and “she doesn’t have to bait the hooks or
handle the fish” so long as she "pretends she is having fun on the water." How cute
is that? If he didn’t have a cat, I would have bookmarked the guy for someday, maybe. (I don't hate cats, but they've been known to make me break out in hives and have trouble breathing.) I nearly
bookmarked another guy who was just looking for a pen pal but a fellow blogger in the comment section over at Judy’s blog pointed out that pen pal guy is probably in prison. Oh gosh, I am so naive! That thought never crossed my mind.

Sunday, June 22, 2014

First let’s get this straight: I am not looking for love on
the internet or anywhere else for that matter. I was just bored when I sat down
to write about my less than exciting life and I was under the influence of what
fellow blogger, Judy, over at Onward and
Upward had shared about finding the profile of guy she dated way back
during band camp---some 50 years ago. She found the profile at Our Time, a dating site for people over
50. I often see one of their commercials on late night TV, the one where they
show a guy who has a deep, sexy voice like my husband had and I can never
ignore what he has to say about getting his first “flirt” within minutes of
posting his profile. Well, duh, he’s a pretty hot looking guy who comes off
as ‘normal’ aka not a mass murderer or a con-artist.

Anyway, back to Judy. What a bizarre thing it was to find an
x-boyfriend like that, I thought. Maybe they are star-crossed, like Don and I
were before we started dating, being at the same places at the same times without
seeing one another yet destine to meet one day. Or maybe unlike me Judy and her X just live in a
small town where the pool of people is so small they're bound to reappear in each other's lives from time to time. Type your zip code into theOur Time
search bar and it spits out your next door neighbor. Your married neighbor with
the sweet wife. After reading Judy's post I couldn’t stop thinking about the guys I had dated before Don
and I got together and I wondered if it was that easy to find out what happened
in their lives over that past half century. Judy said you don’t have to post a
profile over at Our Time to “window
shop” so that’s what I did. I went window shopping in Old Geezer-land.

I have another widow friend who has been going through men
every three to four months for the past four years and she meets them all through
on-line dating and my opinion on the quality of the guys she finds isn’t all
that high. They are all flawed human beings but when you get as old as we are I
suppose it would be nearly impossible to find people on-line (or
anywhere else) that aren’t flawed by the challenges that life throws at us over the years. One profile I read at Our
Time was written by a guy whose wife had died over a decade ago and he had to
see a shrink to get him to a point where he could try dating again. Our Time was his first foray into the
scary world of finding a woman to replace is died wife. Okay. My widow friend
would have sent him “a flirt” because she is into fixing broken souls. It’s her widowhood
hobby like cross-stitching or knitting.

What shocked me the most about what I found in my research
project was how many guys ages 70 to 75 I found at Our time who live in my zip code! There must have been a hundred and I
dare say half of them profess to loving long walks on the beach and holding
hands. Really, guys? How often have you actually done that in your lives? Or is that a code for something I don't understand? Pardon
me if I’m a little skeptical here. The other half who don’t declare an undying
love for shoreline walks were looking for women who love water sports as much
as they do or motorcycles. (That leaves me out. The cellulite on my legs is allergic
to bathing suits and the last time I was on a motorcycle I was fifteen and I got
sent to bed without my supper when I got back home.) These ‘sporty guys’ might
as well say, “Look at me, I'm still strong and athletic for an old duffer and
I have all my own teeth.”

If I was into fixer uppers, I’d teach an on-line class
on how to write a dating profile that actually might reel them in a suitable
mate. And I’d start with photographs. I swear to God some of these guys look
like that could have been stand-ins for demon possessed Jack Torrnace aka Jack
Nicholson in The Shining. Get a
decent haircut, guys, and smile for the camera. And don’t go to a photography studio
in a thirty year old suit or have a yacht in the background unless you
actually own one. One stand-out guy at Our Time professes a love of astrology and here I
thought, “What’s your sign?” went out with the ‘70s. Remember, you're no longer flirting in the prime of your life, guys. Update your pickup lines! And the super-sized income some of these guys claim they have! Why even bother listing your income unless you're looking for a sugar baby, gold digger with with fake breasts and low morals. She's the one I see occasionally in my travels through Old People-hood who walks around with a body full of jewelry like merit badges and says, "Friends just like to give me stuff ."

Wednesday, June 18, 2014

Naming my blog posts has always been harder for me than writing an entire post. I thought about naming this one The Joys of Self Sex but then I’d have write about the topic and while I’m not a prude, that’s not going to happen. I learned my lesson back in my first year of widowhood when I wrote a post titled, Sex with a Ghost. That one still pulls in views from all over the world. Who would have guessed that sex with a ghost would be so popular and since self sex is ever so much more common than ghost sex, my poor little view counter would probably get busted if I were to write about that touchy---no pun intended---subject. Instead, I’ll just start ramble writing and see what ends up on my computer screen.

I am worn out! I am not cut out for the busy social life I’m been living since spring in pursuit of building friendships. I could curl up in a ball and sleep like a bear for the next three months except my dog won’t let me sleep past daylight in the swamps. I don’t live near a swamp, that’s just a metaphor for when it’s light enough for Levi to make out his nemesis, The Rabbit, through the hazy light of dawn. Every morning during my childhood and high school days my mom would wake me up by yelling, “It’s daylight in the swamps!” We didn’t live never a swamp back then either, nor did she when she was growing up. Some family sayings stick through the generations, don’t they, to a time when their origins is all but forgotten. My father’s favorite, silly phrase was, “Do you live around here or ride a bicycle?” And he would ask that question of any little kid he encountered. I just googled the phrase and was surprised to see it appeared in 4-5 obituaries of people in my dad’s age bracket and the origin of the phrase seems to come from The Gargoyle Magazine (of College Wit and Humor) Volume 18,1924. Don’t you just love Google? The moral of that little story is be careful what you include in any obituary you might be required to write because Google will spit it out to anyone who comes knocking on its door…like my Sex With a Ghost post that will live on past a time when I, too, am nothing but an see-through entity that comes in the night. Again, no pun intended.

The dog went to the groomers this week and I got a pedicure. Let’s hear it for clean schnauzer fur and pink human toenails. I wish I could still reach my toenails---I don’t bend like I used to---because I hate paying $41.00 to get the job done. A friend of mine from the senior hall broke her wrist trimming her toenails, can you believe that! She gets hers done professionally now, but it was a long time before she could drive again after her surgery, the cast and physical therapy that followed the break. Old people woes. No matter how you try to avoid them they find you anyway like chin hairs and nipples that don’t line up without adjusting them manually. One goes south, the other goes west looking pretty silly through our silky blouses and thin sweaters and it never happens to pre-menopausal women with their firm breasts. I’m still mad about that.

Saturday, June 14, 2014

When I got the e-mail from my Movie and Lunch Club letting
me know we’d be seeing The Fault in our
Stars I knew nothing about the award-winning book the film is based on. After
looking it up on IMDb I wasn’t enthusiastic about seeing a film with teenagers
in the leading parts and with a cancer theme piled on top of that. Oh, well, I thought, it’s an afternoon out so I e-mailed back,
“Count me in!” Fast forward to Friday and I certainly didn’t expect to be
sitting in a theater with a bunch of cry-babies (me included) for the latter quarter
of the movie. One of the other widows in our group couldn’t even get out of her
seat at the end. She had to sit there for five minutes composing her emotions before
she could join us in the lobby and her face was so puffy from crying she looked
like a person with a ragweed allergy who’d just spent the night sleeping on a
pillow stuffed with those evil weeds. As one reviewer promised about The Fault
in our Stars, “It will break and heal your heart.”

“Sometimes, you read a book and it fills you with this weird
evangelical zeal, and you become convinced that the shattered world will never
be put back together unless and until all living humans read the book.” That’s a
quote from the film and it’s talking about An Imperial Affliction, a factious novel that is discussed
through-out the storyline of The Fault in
our Stars. I feel that way about this movie. If you love love stories, if
you love witty-but-deep characters, if you love emotional drama mixed with
humor on the screen, and if you love dialogue that makes you wish you had a
paper and pencil to record what you’re hearing to savor later you’ll love this
movie. Did I say ‘love’ enough times in this paragraph? In case you missed a
few ‘loves’ I loved this movie! I loved it so much I came home and ordered a
copy of John Green’s book. It's classified as a young adult novel
but a New York Times reviewer called it “a blend of melancholy, sweet, philosophical
and funny” and it won a basket full of awards so I know I’ll---one more time---love the book as much as the movie.

Here’s my nutshell synopsis of the storyline: Sixteen year
old Hazel Grace has thyroid cancer that had spread to her lungs and she has to
haul an oxygen tank around where ever she goes. Seventeen year old Gus is an x-high
school basketball star who lost a leg to cancer. They meet at a cancer support group
and they agree to read each other’s favorite novels and they end up using a wish
from the Make-A-Wish Foundation to go to Amsterdam to meet the author of An Imperial Affliction---with shocking
results. One of them, of course, dies later on but before that happens they
both write each other's eulogy. In the eulogy Gus writes he says, “We don't
get to choose if we get hurt in this world, but we do have a say in who hurts
us. I like my choices. I hope she likes hers.” Did I mention that I am smitten
with Gus? Ansel Elgort, the actor who played the part, has the most expressive
face and eyes and he reminded me of my husband, the early edition. If Ansel needs a grandmother, I’d adopt him in a heartbeat. I’d
adopt Shailene Woodley, too, who played Hazel Grace. Those two kids should go
far in the movie industry.

I suppose I’ve gushed about The Fault in our Stars long enough so I’m moving on to the lunch
conversation we had afterward. The movie, of course, was the discussed and was loved
(there’s that word again) by each and every single one of the fifteen of us who
attended. We also touched on soap operas and when some of the ladies were having
trouble remembering the names of characters they’d been watching for
decades, one lady said: “Have you ever noticed that it takes a village to have
a conversation at our age? What one of us has trouble remembering, someone else
has to fill in.”

Then something incredible happened. Well, at least to me, a
woman who has been longing to talk politics in my off-line life. We got on the
topics of Hillary, Eric Cantor and cable news and I spoke up as often as the
others. Pin a badge of courage on my proud chest! And best of all, no one
looked at me like they wanted to say, “Go away. You can’t play in our
conservative sandbox anymore.” It was a great conversation with various
opinions expressed and respected. And I discovered that at least three others in the
group think very much like I do on the political topics we covered.

Friday, June 13, 2014

Thursday I had an appointment at the orthopedics center on
the rich side of town where I’m guessing my bone doctor could walk to work from
his gated community, if he was so inclined. I got there an hour early because I
didn’t run into the road construction I expected along the way so I looked for
a coffee shop near-by. In my part of the world Starbucks embeds mini coffee
shops in grocery stores but in this rich man’s neighborhood I discovered their grocery
store has a full service/maxi Starbucks with enough chairs to seat the entire
Dallas Cowboys cheerleading squad plus an extra chair for each girl to park her
pompoms. Why do they need 39 or 40 sets of boobs and butt cheeks jiggling on
the field at half-time? I once watched an entire episode of their training camp
reality TV show to find an answer to that and other burning questions but all I
got was another question that begs an answer: How do they keep from getting their
private parts chafed from all that jumping around in their skin tight short-shorts?

The rich man’s grocery store also had something I’ve never
seen in a public place. A deluxe family bathroom with a urinal, regular toilet
and a child sized toilet. With over twelve years of experience under my belt of
seeking out family bathrooms for my wheelchair bound husband, I had never seen
a child’s toilet in one---nor a urinal now that I think about it. I would have
taken a picture but I thought I might feel like a tourist from Kick’s Ville if
I did. The grocery store also had people who took their customers’ groceries
out and loaded them in their cars. That was a flash-back to a by-gone era when
they quit giving that service on my side of town and now I want to be rich. Is
it too late in life for that to happen short of winning the Reader’s Digest
Sweepstakes? All afternoon, I kept opening the front door hoping to see their
camera crew parked on the street and them unloading a giant check made out to
me. Life is so full of disappointments.

Wednesday I had an appointment to get my car’s 12,000
mile maintenance done where I learned that even with my hearing aids in the numbers
16 and 60 sound the same. In addition to the other stuff, I needed new
windshield wiper blades and I was begrudging the fact that they’d “gone up” so
much since I last bought a pair. Boy, did I feel silly when I told the cashier
she made a mistake and undercharged me for the blades from what the (female)
service manager told me they would cost. They had to call the service manager over where it was determined that my next service appointment should be at the hearing aid center.

The dealership where I take my car is in a small town
near-by and it has more than their fair share of female employees working in traditionally
male roles. And they’d hired a new one since my last visit---a certified
mechanic so tiny she could have crawled in with the engine of my car, closed
the hood and still have room left over to do pushups inside. A slight stretch
of the truth, but you get the idea. She was petite like a Barbie Doll if Barbie
Dolls worked on pink plastic cars. The waiting room has windows allowing
customers to watch the mechanics at work and it crossed my mind that if their
new mechanic wore a pair of Dallas Cowboy cheerleaders’ shorts to go with her
bouncy ponytail they could triple their business. (Hey, I wish I had thought to
write that on a comment card.) Okay, that’s a sexist thing to say about her
wearing shorts and not including the guy mechanics in on the new dress code
suggestion but I’m old and I can be forgiven for poking fun.

Wednesday, June 11, 2014

Monday and Tuesday I worked my tail off helping the son-I-wish-I-had
price stuff for an estate sale he’s conducting this coming weekend. I’m not
used to working like that anymore---seven hours on one day, and four and a half
the other. The estate belonged to a widower and the consensus in his
family is that he died of grief and a broken heart. His wife died 8-10 years
ago and after that he lost interest in everything. A man with teenagers still at home, the widower pushed people away and he lost his job because he quit going in. Eventually he started
drinking and abusing drugs. Fast forward, his house that was new when his
wife passed away got filled up to the berm---hoarder style---of stuff bought off
the home shopping channel. I have never seen so many Santa Clauses,
angels, dolls, eagles, tin signs, sports collectibles, religious plaques, clocks and
garden statues all in one place in my life. There were easily 500 Santa Clauses
alone, taking up an entire bay in the garage.. So let that be a cautionary tale for CVQ shoppers with dead spouses. You can fill a house up with junk but that empty place in your heart will still be there. So save yourself the trouble. Just turn the damn channel!

Tuesday I also went on a tour of the back rooms at a
mortuary with 49 others from the senior hall. It wasn’t morbid, scary, creepy or any other negative
adjective in your bag of words. And we laughed. We started laughing on the bus ride
when we speculated on what they’d serve us for lunch. I guessed liver or Rocky
Mountain oysters. (If you’ve never seen the
latter on a menu they are fried testicles.) And we didn’t stop laughing until
after the tour and luncheon was almost over when a woman asked, “When I
die in Florida who should I call first?” and before the mortician could answer
someone shouted out, “Call 1-800 Hello God.”

We were taken to various rooms at the mortuary in groups of ten for talks given by different people: 1)
a man who teaches embalming and is on the state licensing board to certify morticians, 2) a man from a crematorium, 3) a monument company representative, and 4)
a funeral director who took us in the casket room. The latter guy showed us how
the rental caskets work when transferring a body in and out and what the actually burial box looks like. And did you know
you can get a casket built by Saunders/Ikea? That was good for a laugh and I mistook
an ashes casket for a speaker’s podium which was good for another laugh.

The guy from a monument company told me how to keep the
Snoopy charm on my husband’s marble tombstone. Double faced heavy duty tape, not glue. He
also told us about Monu Marks. Have you heard of these little QR codes you can
put on tombstones? Neatest things I’ve seen in ages. They allow people
to use their smart phones to read whatever you upload to Monu Marks…pictures,
the obituary, the eulogy, genealogy, GPS, stories, whatever you want to upload---unlimited. Can you
imagine that? The monument company sells them for $50 installed (on a new or old stone) and they will
replace them free of charge if they ever get damaged. If you have family coming
in from out of town, they can use the GPS app to find the plot in the cemetery.

The guy from the crematorium had photos of the inside of
their facility and he walked us through the whole procedure in detail. (Their gas bill is usually $6,000 a month to do two bodies at a time 24/7. In separate chambers in case you're wondering and they never see the body.) One question I had
was about getting DNA from ashes and as you might guess, they can’t. But a numbered tag that won't burn goes into the crematorium chamber with the body and it is sifted out later and tied on the plastic bag they put the ashes in.

I had an opportunity to talk to cremation guy and
the funeral director without the others from my group in earshot, so I asked
about how the unburned twigs and leaves could have gotten in my husband’s box of ashes. They
had no explanation and the guy from the crematorium was visibly shaken by the
question and he sought me out later on to ask for more details. He shot down my theory that they could have been in the plastic bag before the ashes were added. He says, the bags come inside the ash boxes and are fastened with the metal tag mentioned above. He mentioned another theory about the twigs maybe being broken rush broom bristles instead. Some places use rush brooms during the sifting process but we agreed those two little leaves shoots that theory down. I was mistaken about
there only being one crematorium in town. We have four and Don was not cremated at his
place. The funeral home I used is not one of his contracts. The bottom line, I’ll
never know the answer to my unburned-twigs-and-leaves-in-the-box question but I am sure
beyond a shadow of a doubt that it will be the talk of the local industry...and who to blame. I shouldn't have even been able to pick out bone fragments.

The embalming room we toured, which looked like a low budget surgical
room but just as sterile, white and bright---we even had to wear coverings over our shoes---was
the most interesting part of the tour and it was surprising how much we laughed and learned in
that room. No two bodies are embalmed the same way. What the person died from,
how long they have to keep the body before burial, how long a person was dead before discovery, if the body is going on an airplane where pressure effects the body fluids all factor into which chemicals are used. There are roughly a dozen to choose from. Different
limbs can even get different chemicals from one another. There’s a lot of
science, tools and filters involved in the process and it’s easier, now, to understand why it cost
so much to prepare a body. Did you know some countries use a chemical
that makes the body and bones completely disappear after the funeral? Poof. Nothing left, not even the chemical.

Saturday, June 7, 2014

I wish I had the courage to be as open about my political
leanings, thoughts on current events and opinions on social issues in my blog
as Ronni is over at Time Goes By. She’s
my new blogging hero. But given her long career as a TV producer for shows on 20/20,
PBS, CBS and the Barbara Walters Specials I suspect she’s been seasoned well to
take more heat than chicken me has ever taken for speaking up in public---if,
in fact, she does get nasty, defamatory or hateful emails from people who
disagree with the opinions she blogs. Her comment section is not moderated and
I don’t see any signs of her getting disrespectful feedback so maybe it doesn’t
happen? I find that fascinating. I don’t even see occasional spam in her
comments which my moderator function catches from time to time. I mostly use
the moderator function, though, so I don’t miss a comment because I feel if someone
takes the time to leave one I want to acknowledge it.

Part of the problem with me being more open on certain topics
is I’ve learned from early childhood not to talk about religion and politics in
public because there were very real repercussions. For example, I had a friend
in early grade school tell me on the playground that she couldn’t play with me
anymore because I didn’t go to her church. I’d been to her house the day before
and her mother had asked The Church question that I would hear often in my life. Have I mentioned that I live in an area once proudly labeled the City of Churches? I had a guy in high school tell
me---after meeting his parents---that he couldn’t date me anymore because I
didn’t go to the right church. Growing up and well into my 20s, “What church do
you go to?” was the second question most people asked. Heck, even today it
comes up often when I meet someone new. Early on I learned to lie and name one
of the four “approved” churches in my neighborhood. I don’t lie anymore when
answering that question but I’m very skilled at giving non-committal answers to
the you-should-try-my-church comments that follow. During the Feminist Movement
in the ‘60s (my awakening into the world of politics) the people I worked with were so anti-anything that didn’t involve
women being subservient that I kept my involvement in the movement top secret.
I remember once sitting in the coffee room and listening to a conversation and
thinking, “God, these people think people who think like I do have horns
growing out of our heads!”

Another part of the problem with me getting more open about
the my thoughts on current events and politics here is the title and original
purpose of my blog. It started out as a way to deal with my newly minted
widowhood and it has evolved from there to a blog about one woman’s search for
something elusive---new friends and contentment. I just don’t know how I can
make politics and current events fit into my unwritten mission statement for The Misadventures of Widowhood
but I somehow think they are connected. I have spent my entire life not being
totally honest and open when I meet new people and that is standing in the way
of forming anything beyond surface friendships. I'm tired of pretending! How’s that for a new revelation? They think I’m
a nice, sweet and agreeable pin cushion and inside I feel like a phony who wants
to scream, “I might not go to the right church but I still have good values and
a code of ethics that has been intrinsic in every civilized society that has
ever walked on earth!” I’d even settle
for being able to say to someone face-to-face, “I don’t agree with you because….”
I can do it on-line and with four people in my life, but that’s all. The little
girl inside is still afraid if I'm honest about my liberal politics and
Humanist-as-opposed-religious leanings people will say, “I can’t play with you
anymore.”

Thursday, June 5, 2014

My Red Hat Society chapter had a walk-about this week. We
went to a neighborhood near downtown where a cluster of antique shops are
located. They cater to young professionals and people looking for shabby chic
and their stock was slightly different than what I’m used to seeing when I go
antiquing. One store had a laundry basket full of faces from old pocket
watches. It made me sad to think about all those past century pocket watches
that were obviously melted down for their silver or gold, saving only the guts
to sell to crafters. Those hundreds of tiny little roman numerals on ivory
colored clock faces with ornate embellishments cried out to me. Needless to say
I didn’t buy any of those $6.00 little gems. It would be like buying the bones of a once
beautiful child. I have a dozen or so pocket watches slated to go up for auction
on e-Bay and I came home wondering if I couldn’t somehow put them in a shadow box
to display. But if I put everything in shadow boxes I’m having trouble parting
with my walls would probably fall over from the extra weight.

Also in the same neighborhood was an old style deli where we
ate lunch. The food was super flavorful and there was never a time while we
were there that there wasn’t a line out the door. Dessert---Red Hatters never
pass up dessert---was at an equally old style bakery. I can’t even remember the
last time I’ve even seen a bakery and the cream puffs and éclairs shouted out: “Hey,
I’ll look good on your hips!” The bakery had high shelves lining the walls with more
antique cookie jars than I’ve ever seen in one place and I’ve seen a lot of
cookie jar collections in my travels. I would never drive to this part of town
alone which is probably a good thing because I’d be in that bakery way too
often. I really do wish they’d outlaw sugar. If I had to buy sugary products under
the cover of darkness I might have a chance of staying on a diet. I don’t like
to drive after dark. My eye doctor, today, said I have the beginnings of cataracts
and that’s what gives us old duffers the halo around street lights and headlights,
making night driving so annoying. My cataracts are not big enough for him to
start nagging me to let him remove them---his words, not mine---so I have a few
move years of staying home after dark.

‘Old style’ seemed to be this week’s theme. At the senior luncheon
I saw one of the best bands I’ve had the pleasure to see in a very long time.
The music teachers who made up the band played six instruments between
the three of them including a bass, fiddle, acoustical and regular style guitars, banjo, and a
washboard. They played what they called “porch music” which was a blend of mountain
music, prohibition era songs and stuff you could picture yourself singing if
you were living in the book, The Grapes
of Wrath, dirt poor and on the way to California to look for work. What
made the show doubly good was in between the songs the teachers talked
about the history of the genres they sang, their instruments and old time
singers and song writers who influenced modern music. And all that for $6.00
including food.

Monday, June 2, 2014

I went three days without speaking to a living soul other
than the dog and he’s not much of a conversationalist. Levi’s favorite
sentences are: “I want a treat. Right now!” “Let me in!” “The
rabbits are attacking the house again!” “Let me out!” and “Oh, boy, I really
get to go to Starbucks with you?” Today I finally broke down and called a friend
and after a half hour conversation I was ready to go back to my exceedingly-boring-at-the-moment
life. Have I mentioned that my friend’s conversations are as predictable as the
dogs? Aches, pains the rising cost of everything and grandchildren.

Then I called the service department at the electric company
to arrange to get a radio transmitter device put on my meter so their meter
readers won’t have to walk through my dog pen anymore. I’m getting old-lady
cranky and I’m sick of them leaving the gate open. Last winter when the gate
was frozen in the snow one of their guy’s climbed over the fence, broke the top
off one of the pickets and it was the last straw, today, when I had to go to
Lowe’s to buy a special glue to fix it. The electric company couldn’t have been
nicer about my request. Friday someone will be here to install the new device
free of charge. And for a bonus I'll get someone new to talk to while he/she is here.

Coming up soon I'll have other opportunities for
conversation: a haircut and eye doctor appointment, a trip to restock my mall
booth, the June luncheon at the senior hall, and a tour of the back rooms at a
funeral parlor. Sounds macabre, I know, but haven’t you ever wanted to ask a
funeral director questions at a time when you’re not seriously mourning a loss?
Well, I know I’m not the only one because our senior hall was able to fill up a
whole bus load of curious people like me. I plan to ask some questions about
cremation but I’m not sure I want to hear an honest, truthful answer. Like, “How did the
unburned twigs and two dried leaves get into my husband’s box of ashes?” “If those
ashes were tested would it prove they were ashes from a common, backyard fire
pit or that of human origins?” Trust is such a big issue when turning a loved one
over to a funeral home, isn’t it. When I first found the twigs and leaves I
should have marched that box of ashes right back to the funeral home, slammed
it down on the director’s desk with a force that propelled a ghostly cloud
above the box and demanded an answer then and there. But how much stuff can a
newly minted widow take? So here I am nearly 2 ½ years later with the courage
to finally ask those questions and the universe is giving me an opportunity to
do it.